If you are not already one of hundreds of
thousands of Facebook users duped into a "photoshop" scam,
congratulations. More than 600,000 others have fallen prey to this latest
Facebook scam.
Here's how it works.
You see a message on your Facebook Chat window from a friend that reads, "hey, i just made a photoshop of you."
Here's how it works.
You see a message on your Facebook Chat window from a friend that reads, "hey, i just made a photoshop of you."
There's also a link in the message to a third-party application, which asks for access to your profile in the same manner as many other outside apps. The app asks for access to your Facebook information, including your name, gender, photo, networks, lists of friends, user ID plus access to your Facebook Chat, reported The Huffington Post.
If you click "allow," the attack begins. The app distracts victims with pictures of animals with human-like faces. The app then starts spamming your Facebook friends via Chat.
M86 Security Labs , which was monitoring the scam on Monday, reported that it was "spreading rapidly" with more than 88,000 clicks per hour.
With more than 600 million active users around the world, Facebook has become a popular target for spammers. Viral scams can kick into high gear after only a few clicks, reported The Atlantic .
"At this point, we do not know what the end game is for the scammers here," according to M86 Security Labs. "The destination site results in no malicious infection and does not lead to a survey scam. Having access to a users' Facebook Chat could allow the scam application to be used to send out other messages."
The best thing to do if you have fallen for this scam is to remove the app immediately.
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